Wraparound student supports

Education organizers in New York City celebrated when then-mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio promised to create 100 new community schools to better meet the out-of-school needs of the city's children. Now, just over a year into his term as mayor, de Blasio's administration is upping that number to 200 community schools by 2017.

The school funding case working its way through the Pennsylvania court system ran into a temporary setback when a lower court ruled that the court system lacked the jurisdiction to rule on whether the state was failing to provide adequate funding to schools and students. The defendants are filing an appeal and the case will now advance to the State Supreme Court.

As part of the ongoing Roadmap to Expanding Opportunity project, the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center has released a new policy brief designed to help advocates and educators make the case for expanding access to one particular resource in school: smaller class sizes.

Jitu Brown, National Director of the Journey for Justice Alliance, and Judith Browne Dianis, Co-Director of the Advancement Project, spoke out in a recent op-ed, calling for a return to ESEA's true purpose: ensuring equity in our nation's public schools so that all children have the same opportunities to succeed.

Federal lawmakers seem to be getting serious about a rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The OTL Campaign was proud to join over 100 grassroots community and labor groups this week to release an open letter to Congressional leaders urging them to support the development of full-service community schools, end the school-to-prison pipeline, halt federal funding for charter school expansion, and maintain the Title I program.

After months of intense organizing in Albany and across the state, education organizers in New York got a mix of victories and setbacks in the new state budget.

Chanting "We Can't Wait!" and marching through downtown Albany, over 2,000 teachers, advocates, parents, and students rallied last Wednesday for an increase in state funding for public schools. Despite a 2006 ruling from the New York state supreme court that held that New York had failed to provide public schools with adequate educational resources under the state constitution, many schools have yet to receive the required level of funding.